


the silent spaces in between

by SOMNlARl



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Cullen talks in his sleep, Dorian can't even, Fluff, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles, so much fluff omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4164648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SOMNlARl/pseuds/SOMNlARl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short little fluffy one-shot written for a tumblr prompt from pfaerie: Cullrian cuddling and Dorian can't stay still maybe thank you ♡</p>
            </blockquote>





	the silent spaces in between

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: xhermionedanger. come play in my trash heap or prompt me.

It has been a year since Dorian sailed from Tevinter. An entire year and Fereldan was still nearly as strange and foreign as it was the first day he crossed its borders.

It was something more than just the seemingly endless cold - the snow-covered peaks and rain that battered the coastline, wearing it down to nothing but jagged rocks and eroding beach - though that certainly didn’t help.

_I might have gotten used to that by now_ he muses as he shivers and shifts, rolling over onto his side. He reaches down with a single, frozen hand for the layers of blankets which had come to pool across his hips and pulls at the edges until they are back up over his shoulders. He might have gotten used to it had it not been for sharing not only Cullen’s bed, but also the warmth that radiates from him and keeps Dorian warm through the long, Fereldan winters. Dorian breathes a sigh of relief as he chances a look back at the blonde who was still asleep despite his fidgeting, though he mumbles sleepily at the movement, breathes words that sound just like _no, stay… don’t go_ , Dorian would have sworn. Cullen’s breath is warm against the back of his neck and as Dorian inches closer towards him until they are pressed together - the swell of Dorian’s hips flush against the hollows of the man’s abdomen, soft skin on soft skin - he instinctively wraps his arms tighter across the mage’s chest, huffing out a sleepy sigh.

The sound tugs at his heart and _Maker_ he knows that he’s grinning like a fool but he never could help but melt at the soft, contented sounds that slip out from between the man’s perfect, barely parted lips as he sleeps; the lips Dorian had claimed as his from their first night together, left them bitten, bruised, kiss-swollen and aching for more.

He wants those lips more than anything, finds his thoughts returning to them and the feel of them against his own more often than not. He craves them and the way they’re always ready for him, wants to turn in the man’s arms and press his lips against Cullen’s, taste the sweet, smoky depths of him that have come, more than anything else this last year has, to taste like _home_.

He’d never truly kissed before, he realized with a start that he struggled to stifle. 

Kisses in Tevinter had been perfunctory, a sense of wholly unsatisfying closure to his trysts that left him breathless, desperately reaching for all of the more that he couldn’t have. A brush of his lovers’ lips across his own and then they had been gone, stealing away into the night.

He can’t resist; he turns in the warrior’s arms to face him until they’re forehead to forehead, nose to nose. He presses closer until they’re hip to hip, legs tangled together like vines climbing a trellis. Until he can feel the rough weft of Cullen’s linen pants pressing against his thighs, leaving marks he’ll cherish far longer than ‘til morning light. Until his fingers brush against Cullen’s cheek, the tips of each finger tracing across the faint lines marking the blonde’s forehead until they soften and disappear. Until his careful, quiet ministrations pull his lover just barely from sleep and Cullen murmurs a few sleepy words into his chest - _Dorian… love… my heart… love you…_ \- before he adjusts, throwing an arm that had slipped back beside him over the mage’s chest.

He’s not used to it, this closeness. He’d learned to accept friendship, something he’d never imagined before coming South; the Bull, Sera, Varric and Cole had more than seen to that. They’d rather taken his aloofness as a personal affront when he’d kept his distance, still unsure of what their invitations had meant and yes, he’d learned quickly. Friendship was still strange but who was he to argue with a company of heavily armed, stubborn warriors and rogues? He did still value his skin.

But this. This was something different entirely. A lover was something he understood but the very first night… instead of being encouraged out of Cullen’s bed the man had clung to him, wrapped him arms around his waist and rolled over until he had nearly suffocated him, chin tucked in the dip of Dorian’s shoulder. _Stay_ , he’d whispered and yes, Dorian had, reveling in the warmth of him.

And yet it had been hard; was still hard, if Dorian was honest. Sharing a bed, it was something done out of necessity, something slaves and soporati did. His parents had always enjoyed separate quarters after their required visits to keep up appearances. No self-respecting Altus or Magister would ever dare… but no, he supposes that was not who he was any longer, strange as it might seem. That life was so foreign, not what he wanted to be but still, it teased a shiver up his spine as he imagined all that he had lost. An unwelcome whimper passed from between his lips and then there were was a hot mouth against his, quieting him, capturing him.

_Dorian, shhhh…_ Cullen breathes - clearly awake now - against his mouth, tongue slowly parting his lips and trailing further inside. A hand in his hair, fingertips caressing each strand, curling each tendril between waiting fingers and _oh Maker_ but the man knows how to use his mouth.

He lets out an undignified squeak that he would deny to his dying day as the man trails his lips down his jawline and across his neck, teeth grazing against his skin.

“Cullen!” Dorian exclaims with a gasp as the blonde comes to rest at his collarbone, sinking teeth into his skin hard enough to leave a mark in the morning. “Vishante kaffas, what was that?”

Cullen grins lazily as he kisses the spot where just a moment ago his teeth had been, tongue swirling slowly against Dorian’s skin.

“Go back to sleep, my heart,” the warrior whispers against Dorian’s shoulder, stubble tickling at the back of the mage’s neck.

“And try not to wake me up next time.”

Dorian can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of his lips as Cullen’s breath evens and slows; nor can he help how he edges closer towards the blonde, nearly pushing him off his pillow as sleep beckons and he answers the call of the Fade.

He thinks he could get used to this.


End file.
